Search engines have become an efficient and effective tool for finding and retrieving information, i.e., search results, relevant to a user's query. The relative placement of search results greatly affects the probability that a user will find desired information. Today, to determine the relative placement of search results, many search engines organize search results based on a document ranking. The method employed to rank documents varies widely among search engines. Most search engines, however, determine a document ranking based on, at least in part, one or more query terms, e.g., a word or phrase entered by a user. For instance, in a vertically displayed listing of search results, the result(s) most relevant to the user's query terms are generally positioned at or near the top of the listing.
As a result of listing documents based, at least in part, on document ratings, documents having the same domain may be dispersed throughout the displayed search results. For example, the search results of a specific query may list a document on the first search result page and another document having the same domain on the fifth search result page. Accordingly, the dispersed listing of documents having the same domain may require a significant amount of time to view each search result page to locate the desired information. As such, user satisfaction may decline. Moreover, a user with a limited amount of search time may be unsuccessful in locating the desired information.
In addition, a dispersed listing of documents having the same domain may utilize a significant amount of search result space. For example, the search results of a specific query may list ten documents on the first search result page having the same domain and another ten documents on the second search result page having the same domain. Each such search result listing may include, for example, a snippet, the URL, the title, and the like. As such, multiple search results pertaining to documents having the same domain may utilize and clutter a majority of both the first and second search result pages. In addition to the amount of search result space utilized by multiple search results related to documents having the same domain, the clutter may result in a tedious and time consuming user query experience.